


Morning Glory

by designerjeremiah



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Crack Relationships, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, Morning Cuddles, Morning Routines, Mornings, Multi, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29235687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/designerjeremiah/pseuds/designerjeremiah
Summary: Various Naruto characters and couples and their morning routines.  Pure domestic fluff.
Relationships: Akimichi Chouji/Karui, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi/Maito Gai | Might Guy, Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka, Nara Shikamaru/Temari, Sai/Yamanaka Ino, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruko, Uchiha Satsuki/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 19
Kudos: 100





	1. Sasuke & Sakura & Sarada

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an artwork of Shikamaru and Temari’s morning routine by u/ba0face on r/Naruto.
> 
> Taking requests, I can do almost any pair (if you don’t mind some of the more outlandish ones becoming pure crackfic.)

Sasuke is always awake first, before dawn, woken by the night's chill because Sakura stole all the blankets and wrapped herself up like a burrito. He yawns deep, scratching his bare chest, and shakes the sleep fog from his head before rising. His first stop is the kitchen to fire up the coffee pot - all the gods help him if he forgot that - and then he showers and dresses.

He walks into the kitchen as he buttons his vest, then reaches for the huge mug that says "Boss Bitch", adds four heaping scoops of sugar, a splash of cream, two ice cubes, and tops it off with coffee. He's pouring a second cup (two sugars, but nearly half cream) as Sakura comes stumbling into the kitchen, wearing one of his old shirts and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She groans like a zombie in appreciation as he maneuvers the mug into her hands, and proceeds to drain the cup in one extended chug.

She sets the mug down on the counter and leans against him with a muffled thump, and just breathes his scent for a moment. About that time Sarada comes stumbling into the kitchen in her pajamas, only slightly more gracefully than her mother, and silently holds her hand out for the second cup. He slips it into his daughter's hand, and she sips it noisily as she wobbles towards the dining room table. He leans back against the counter, holding Sakura against him with the stub of his left arm, and pouring her second cup with his right.

"More sugar this time," she mumbles sleepily.


	2. Sai & Ino & Inojin

Sai slips quickly from full sleep to perfect wakefulness, a useful byproduct of his Root training. A warm weight shifts against his right side, and a cool finger starts idly tracing circles against his smooth chest.

"Mmm... morning, sleepyhead," Ino says, smiling.

He stretches his arms above his head and pushes against the headboard, straining and releasing to loosen his muscles. He looks down at Ino, and notes how her smile has an invitation attached. The tiniest real smile touches his lips as he shakes his head.

"Not this morning," he says. "I have an early meeting at ANBU headquarters."

She purses her lips in a fake pout, then twists away from him, sitting up on the side of the bed and shaking her hair out with a yawn. Then she leans down and scoops up her robe from the floor, wrapping it around her nude form and standing up. She looks over shoulder at him in another silent invitation, then walks out into the hall with a little extra butt-wiggle when Sai just rolls his eyes.

He sits up on his side and snags last night's pants, pulling them on as he stands. He hears the shower start as he steps into the hallway towards the kitchen.  
Inojin is already awake, hair unbound and wearing only his overalls, sitting in a chair at the kitchen table with his feet propped on another, working on a sketchbook held in his lap, an open can of the atrocious energy drink the boy prefers at his elbow. Sai looks as he passes by - a study of the Hokage monument in charcoal, modern style, well drawn.

"Morning, dad," Inojin chirps brightly, raising his free hand in a lazy salute. Sai suppresses the urge to ruffle his son's hair and continues towards the sink.

He pulls out the press and turns on the kettle before opening the cabinet by the fridge and considering the coffee options. Sai himself never partook - Root training having removed any need or desire for stimulants on waking, and while he appreciated the aroma of coffee, he had never acquired the taste. But where was the damn unopened bottle of conditioner-

Ah, right. He closes his eyes and vividly imagines where he stowed the spare bottle, under the bathroom sink. Ino presses a phantom kiss against his cheek as she lifts the information out of his mind.

What to choose this morning? Sai considers his wife for a moment, then reaches for the River Country dark roast, and orange blossom honey. He didn't appreciate good coffee, but he appreciated his wife's appreciation, and always made sure they were stocked with a variety of the best.

He is just pressing the plunger down on the press when Ino steps into the kitchen, robe belted tight and her hair up in a towel. He squeezes a tablespoon of honey into her cup, then tops it with the rich coffee. She accepts the cup from him with a smile, and then -eyes twinkling mischievously- slides her other palm sensuously from his navel to his throat.

"You two are absolutely disgusting," Inojin says, carefully not looking up.


	3. Choji & Cho-cho & Karui

The smell of sizzling bacon rouses Choji from his slumber. He yawns hugely, then pats his growling belly with one massive hand while reaching with his other to gently cup Karui's warm brown cheek.

"Mflrbl," the ex-Kumo shinobi mutters sleepily, opening one golden eye to look at her husband. He leans over to kiss her forehead.

"I'll wake you for second breakfast," he says gently. Karui smiles, closes her eye, and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like "waffles."

Waffles. Sometimes he wondered why he married someone that didn't appreciate the superiority of pancakes.

He rolls upright, stretching, then grabs his undershirt off his night stand and pulls it on over his head. As he stands, his feet slide into a pair of fuzzy slippers, and he pulls his robe around him, leaving it untied.

After a quick stop in the bathroom, he wanders into the kitchen. Cho-cho is at the stove, wrapped tightly in her fuzzy pink bathrobe, flipping a griddle full of pancakes with one hand while stirring a pan of gravy with the other. There's already a plate full of bacon and a bowl of scrambled eggs on the breakfast bar, and Choji can smell biscuits in the oven.

"Mmm," he says, snagging a slice of bacon. "You should do sausage too, it goes best with pancakes," he adds with his mouth full.

Cho-cho turns and gives him a withering stare of disgust. "We're not barbarians here, dad," she scoffs, then lifts a spoonful of gravy from the pan. "I put it in the gravy, where it belongs."

He laughs at the adorable way she flicks her hair around, hiding her coffee-with-cream face from him in mock anger. He squeezes her shoulder as he walks past her to the fridge and starts pulling out fresh fruit and whipped cream for the pancakes, and a giant pitcher of orange juice.

Moments later the pair sit down at the bar, each with a towering stack of fruit betopped pancakes, heaping servings of eggs and bacon, and a plateful of biscuits and sausage gravy. A quick "Itadakimasu!" and the pair begins to chow down.

Cho-cho finishes ahead of him, and lets out a dainty burp behind her hand. Choji, not to be outdone, forks the last of his pancakes into his mouth, chews and swallows, and lets loose a ringing belch.

"Gross, dad," she says with a smile. He laughs hard enough to make his belly jiggle, and gathers their dishes.

He's just finishing the pans when Karui walks in the kitchen, gently punches him in the shoulder, and turns the kettle on. Choji quickly dries his hands, flips her tawny hair out of his way and kisses the chocolate skin of her neck as she growls at him, then ladles a spoonful of batter onto the already hot waffle iron as his wife makes her breakfast tea.

"You had better not have eaten all my blueberries," she grumbles as she reaches in the fridge for her favorite fruit, along with milk for her tea. Choji flips another waffle off the iron and starts the fifth as she pulls out a full carton of berries and hip-bumps the fridge door closed.

Cho-cho walks back into the kitchen, dressed in her mission gear and pinning her hair into place. Choji waves the ladle at her. "Want a couple waffles before you go?" he asks.

"Sorry, dad," she says as she pats the last stray strands of her hair into place. "I'm already late, I'll get it in the neck from Moegi-sensei if I wait." She reaches in the pantry and pulls out a giant bag of consomme-flavored chips, gives her dad a one-armed hug and her mom a kiss on the cheek, and strides out the door.

"Brat," Karui says fondly at the closing door, and then dumps two thirds of the carton of blueberries on her two waffles and the remaining third on Choji's six. The two enjoy their waffles in appreciative silence.

Finally Choji picks up his plate, but Karui reaches out and snatches it from his hands. "I've got it, go get dressed," she says.

He looks down at his worn green robe, white undershirt, blue boxers and fuzzy pink slippers. "What's wrong with this? I'm off duty today."

Karui snorts and flicks a blueberry at his head. "You look like that loser in that bowling movie. Go get dressed," she adds with a smirk.


	4. Jugo & Orochimaru

Jugo rolls out of his cot around 4 a.m., and quickly dresses in scrub pants. He's never been one to dawdle in the morning. He stretches stoically, then stalks out of the tiny room he calls his bedroom and down the cool snakeskin-painted hallway to, what in another world, might have been called a staff breakroom.

The electric kettle is hot, and three empty packs of cocoa mix litter the cabinet top. Suigetsu must be up as well.

Jugo fills the teapot with loose black tea, a very expensive selection from the Land of Tea, followed by water from the kettle. Into a chipped mug he shakes out a dose of instant coffee, mixes it with more hot water, and swallows half the cup of the scalding bitterness.

Hm. His skin itches, and he feels the pressure of his curse mark pushing extra hard this morning. An enzyme check is in order.

He pours more water and instant coffee in his cup, then cleans up Suigetsu's mess as the tea steeps. When he judges the pot to be ready, he pulls a bergamot out of the fridge, peels it quickly, and twists the oil out of the rind into the teapot. He considers the available cups before selecting the one that says "World's Greatest Mom" - Karin's idea of a joke, but it _is_ fitting. It joins the teapot and a bowl of rhododendron honey on a plastic tray.

Jugo lifts the tray with one hand and walks out of the breakroom towards the lab, pausing only to unlock secured doors in his way with his thumbprint.

He finds the androgynous form of Orochimaru leaning over the screen of a gene sequencer, reading the output. After the old snake had perfected the sleep deletion sequence, it had quickly applied the results to itself, and had not slept once in the six years since. Jugo, Karin, Suigetsu and Log all took turns bringing it breakfast tea just to remind it another day had passed.

"Ah, excellent, Jugo," it says quietly. "Place it over there by the analyzer."

Jugo sits the tray down gently, then takes his own cup to the phlebotomy cabinet. He flexes his arm, and slides a vacutainer needle into an elevated vein, followed by a vacutainer tube, and draws a blood sample. Then he slides the filled tube into the auto-analyzer and presses the start button.

Orochimaru sneers at the mug, but adds a teaspoon of honey before topping it with the still-hot tea. Then it lifts the cup, and with a pinky free, sips delicately.

"Remind me to have dear Yamato purchase another kilo of this flavor," the old snake says, settling into it's rolling chair and checking the sequencer results again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhododendron honey is very poisonous. Of course it's Orochimaru's favorite sweetener.


	5. Sasuke & Naruko

Sasuke wakes up suffocatingly hot, with a face full of reddish-gold hair and an elbow jammed into his ribs, ears buzzing from a penetrating snore, about to fall out of bed.

_ Ah, _ he thinks,  _ the dobe made it home from her mission last night. _

First things first, he eases Naruko's pointy elbow out of his side, then pulls her hair out of his face, and dumps the pile of covers on top of her sleeping body. She always insisted on sleeping under two blankets, until her ridiculous bijuu-enhanced metabolism turned up her internal thermostat in the middle of the night, at which point both blankets wound up on Sasuke.

He sits up on the narrow strip of bed she left him, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He turned to look at her innocent sleeping face and gave a sardonic half-smile.

They were both too emotionally damaged to use words like  _ lovers _ and  _ girlfriend _ and  _ boyfriend _ to refer to their relationship.  _ Roommates _ was accurate, in that they shared the apartment, but most roommates didn't share the violently enthusiastic sex the two regularly engaged in.  _ Teammates _ was an artifact of their youth.  _ Friends _ , even  _ friends with benefits, _ was something they had grown far beyond.

_ Hn _ , Sasuke thought. Naruko was right, as usual.  _ Rivals. _ Even their sex was a competition.

He stumbles upright, and walks out of the bedroom towards the toilet, snagging a clean tee shirt out of the basket on top of the dryer along the way. Afterwards he heads into the kitchen, starting the kettle and dropping two bags of green tea in his favorite cup.

It looks like Naruko prepped the coffee pot before she crawled in bed last night, and Sasuke checks the filter - yep, it's that Iwa sludge with insane levels of caffeine that turn her into a hyperactive ball of sunshine long before he is ready to deal with it. He briefly contemplates dumping it and replacing it with decaf, if he only  _ had _ decaf, Naruko wouldn't even allow it in the apartment. Sasuke sighs, slides the filter basket home, pushes the start button and steels himself for the day.

He's slicing leftover chicken when she comes thumping into the kitchen in a green tee-shirt emblazoned with frogs and white panties showing. "M'coff," she mumbles, scrubbing at her eyes. "Teme. Where m'coff?"

He sighs, but dumps half the sugar bowl in her giant orange mug and fills it with her vile coffee blend anyways. She takes it out of his hand, takes a huge noisy slurp, and sleepily leans into his side.

"Wass fr'breakfast? Wan' ramen."

Sasuke snorts- and immediately regrets it.

"Dobe."

"Huh?"

"Go take a shower. You smell like dirty socks."

"Nuh-uh, you smell, teme."

"Naruko, shower, now."

She steps away from him and makes a face. But he's right, the massive caffeine dose is lifting her morning fog, and she did crawl into bed straight off a mission without showering and can smell herself. So she slurps down another huge swallow of coffee, sticks her tongue out at him, and wanders off to the bathroom.

While the shower is running he starts the chicken and some onions browning, then scoops two bowls of leftover rice out of the pot in the fridge and starts microwaving them. When the chicken has a bit of color, he adds a glug of shoyu, a dash of cooking sake, and a spoonful of hondashi and stirs. Three eggs get cracked in a bowl and beaten, then poured in the pan once the liquid comes to a boil.

By the time he hears the shower shut off, two bowls of oyakodon are ready and on the kitchen table.

Naruko walks back into the kitchen in orange trackpants and a grey tee shirt, her damp hair already back in twin tails, smelling of her citrus body wash. She ignores Sasuke completely and opens the cabinet by the fridge, pulling out an extra large cup of instant ramen. Sasuke is ready though, and relieves her of the ramen with one hand while shoving her bowl of oyakodon into her hands with the other.

She sighs and grumbles as she takes it back to the table. She digs in with her chopsticks as Sasuke sets her mug beside her and refills it with more of her inadvisable brew.

"Bastard," Naruko says, but she says it with the special grin she reserves only for him when she's happy, and Sasuke's hard pressed to keep his stoic facade as his heart melts once again.


	6. Sakura & Naruto & Sasuke

It’s 5:45 a.m., and Sakura’s Tsunade-training-from-hell internal alarm clock forces her from a pleasant internal dream about ducks (ducks?) and into unpleasant wakefulness.

Fuck. She has emergency room duty today, twelve hours of it. She has to be ready to go at eight.

She’s naked, sandwiched between the pleasant warmth of Sasuke’s nude form at her back and the broiling heat of Naruto’s naked body cooking her front. She loves this spot, tight between her two boys, almost too warm under the sheets, but the chill of the tip of her nose tells her the first serious cold front of late autumn came last night, and no one had lit the heater. She wants to burrow deeper between them and let one of them deal with it, but habit forces her to twist herself upright, pulling the sheet from around Naruto, yawning hugely.

Fuck. Tsunade hadn’t been her shishou for years, but the older blonde medic’s drill-sergeant instruction is engraved in Sakura’s bones. Sakura is less likely to go back to sleep than she is to deliberately kill a puppy.

She wriggles to the end of the bed, trying not to wake the boys -Sasuke is awake, she knows, his combat-trained senses probably woke him when she woke, but enough of Naruto’s morning laziness has rubbed off on the dark-haired man that he’s waiting for her to get up before he goes back to sleep. She grabs Naruto’s orange and black tee shirt from yesterday and pulls it over her head, then stands.

Sakura pauses at the door to the bedroom, watching as Sasuke rolls into Naruto to soak up his warmth. She can’t help but smile.

Fuck, it’s cold. First, she totters into the living room, cranks all five burners on the wall heater to max, and clicks the igniter impatiently until it roars to life. Sasuke will gripe later about it being too hot, but screw him, she’s wearing a thin cotton shirt that barely covers her ass and she’s  _ cold.  _ Then she stumbles back into the kitchen, spoons four heaping scoops of caffeine-heavy Iwa dark roast into the filter of the coffee pot, and punches the start button. She drops a bag of chamomile herbal tea and a bag of black oolong into Sasuke’s black mug and starts the electric kettle.

The next stop is the laundry room, where she pulls her uniform off the hangers and fresh underwear out of the dryer. Then into the bathroom, dropping Naruto’s shirt on the floor and cranking the shower to somewhere between scalding and supernova.

When she steps back in the kitchen thirty minutes later, Sasuke is standing at the stove, wearing a pair of Naruto’s faded orange boxers and a black tank top, tea cup steaming on the counter beside him. Sakura stands beside him and leans into his left shoulder. Pancakes this morning.

“Did you have to turn the heater all the way up this morning?” he asks, looking down at her.

“Fuck you, I was cold,” she replies without rancor. 

“Hn,” he answers back, pushing her away with his damaged arm -but he sets the spatula down and cups her face with his good hand, and pulls her in for a kiss that curls her toes.

Fuck. If she had time she’d let him bend her over the table, slide satisfyingly deep into her, let him put on a little show for the blond member of their little trio when he drags his sleepy ass into the kitchen. Let Naruto come over to the table so she can taste the hardness of him-

Fuck. If she thought much more along those lines, she really  _ would _ be late.

“Stop it, bastard,” she says with a smile. He responds with a hitch of laughter and one of his smug half-smiles. He knows what he does to her. Hell, if he’s in enough of a mood to kiss her like that this early, Naruto had best watch out - Naruto and Sasuke were both off-duty today, and sex between those two without her moderating presence had wrecked the apartment more than once.

Sakura presses a kiss into the palm of his hand, then reaches up and pulls two orange coffee cups and her insulated maroon sakura-blossom painted work mug out of the cupboard. One cup gets three heaping tablespoons of vanilla sugar, while the other gets two and a healthy splash of cream. She tops both with coffee, then turns her attention to her work mug.

Naruto comes thumping into the kitchen with a groan, wearing nothing but a pair of Sasuke’s navy boxers, as she’s shaking vanilla sugar straight from the bowl into her mug. She picks up his cup of black coffee and holds it out to him. He takes it in both hands, takes a noisy slurp, then kisses her forehead right over the diamond of her Hundred Healings seal. Then he thumps over to Sasuke and kisses the dark-haired man’s shoulder before yawning hugely into it.

Sasuke bumps Naruto gently in the face with his shoulder, then flips the last pancake onto a plate and turns off the stove. Naruto picks two of the plates up, balancing one on his mug, and carries them to the kitchen table. Sakura finishes filling her work mug, then pulls syrup and sliced strawberries out of the fridge as Sasuke grabs the third plate.

The three eat in silence, only interrupted by Naruto’s loud sips of coffee. Sakura takes her pancakes with strawberries and a drizzle of syrup. Naruto forgoes the strawberries to drown his in syrup, so much it threatens to run off his plate. Sasuke isn’t a fan of sweet things, so his pancakes are adorned with nothing but a heavy pat of butter -but he does take a few strawberries on the side.

Sakura is slipping on her sandals as she looks back in the kitchen. Naruto is washing plates, and Sasuke is standing right behind him, curling his good arm around the blond to slide his hand up Naruto’s bare abs, and Naruto is pretending to ignore him but his huge, brilliant grin says he knows exactly what Sasuke wants-

Fuck, she loved her two boys.

“Hey,” she says, and when the two turn to look at her, she holds her finger up and rolls it in a circle, indicating the house. “Don’t break too much shit, and save some of that energy for me when I get home. And get the extra-large assortment of sushi from Osaka’s for dinner and save me some Naruto, you pig.”

“Believe it,” Naruto answers with a wink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a general rule I don't write explicit sexual situations. However, the smut fic in my head that accompanies this one is tempting to write anyways - Sakura admits she is lonely and jealous of Naruto and Sasuke's relationship, and Naruto invites her to be the creamy filling, and it's all angsty and fluffy and romantic and sweet and hilarious and just a tiny bit gross.


	7. Kiba & Neji

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first reader submission. I warned you about the crackfic.

The first thing Kiba notices, as the light streaming through the unfamiliar bedroom window brings him back to wakefulness, is that someone must have hammered a kunai into the top of his skull. And stuffed his sinuses full of wool, dumped an ashtray in his dry mouth, and thrown sand in his aching eyes.

The second thing he notices is the warm body cuddled against him, as whoever it is draws their soft hand from his waist to his chest and runs their fingers through his chest hair.

The third thing Kiba notices is the shout that echoes painfully through his overly-sensitive ears, and a crash as his sleeping companion flings themselves violently out of bed, dragging the blanket with them.

Kiba jerks upright- and nearly empties his stomach all over himself as his head rings like a gong. Right, no sudden movements. Eyes screwed shut, he wills his stomach to settle and desperately tries to remember last night. A shinobi bar, Uzumaki announcing that he would be taking the Hokage hat in three months, then going shot for shot with Sakura-

No fucking wonder. Sakura is a Tsunade-trained partier and could drink any three other shinobi through the floor. What in hell had possessed him to take her on?

He had made some kind of bet with her. Oh no.

Kiba opens one eye and peers towards the side of the bed- only to meet the pale lavender eyes of Neji fucking Hyuuga staring daggers at him, blanket wrapped around his waist.

His mouth works silently as his hangover-fogged mind desperately tries to find something to say.

"Not a single word, Inuzuka," Neji hisses at him.

Kiba nods, as another detail about the previous night filters through. Some kind of bet with Sakura, and then staggering towards the drunken form of the Hyuuga cousin.

Kissing him full on the lips.

With tongue.

_Fuck._

Kiba nods. "Nothing happened," he replies. "I was drunk, you let me pass out on your couch. That's all."

"Exactly," Neji answers back, the tension leaving his shoulders. "I am glad we are in agreement."

Kiba groans and hides his face in his hands.

"However," Neji adds, "Please, for the love of all the gods, _put on some clothes."_

Kiba nods, and swings his feet around to his side of the bed, nearly stepping on Akamaru. The giant shaggy dog looks up at his partner, and his jaw drops in a doggy grin. Kiba catches the hound by the nose.

"Don't you start. And get off my pants!"


	8. Kakashi & Guy

Kakashi is startled awake at dawn by a loud “YOSH!” from the kitchen.

Damn. Guy had found where Kakashi hid the carton of eggs. He was going to have to smell that nauseating protein drink the taijutsu master swore by.

There is nothing else to do but get up. Kakashi yawns through his mask, then reaches over and rubs Pakkun behind the ears. The ninken yawns and stretches, opens one lazy eye, and glares at Kakashi.

“Why do you let him live here, anyways?” the pug asks.

“Ma, ma, he’s usually good company. Just not at six-thirty in the morning.”

The ninken huffs, burrows under the blanket, and grunts at his master. “I’m going back to sleep. Tell him to save me some of his protein drink, will ya?”

Kakashi laughs silently, then rolls upright and pushes the blanket down. Stretching his arms settles the mild ache in his back, and his knees click as he swings his feet around and stands. Life and exceptional med-nins have been kind on most of his body, but an active shinobi life has left its mark on his joints. Still, thirty-nine with only the first traces of arthritis left him luckier than some of his peers.

He wraps his thin robe around the shirt and boxers that served as his nightwear, and fishes a fresh mask from his top dresser drawer, pulling it over his unruly white hair and thin face. He leaves it down around his neck - Guy is one of the few he trusts enough to show his face to.

The taijutsu master is standing at the counter in his boxers, balancing smoothly on his good leg, measuring out whey powder into a blender already filled with spinach, raw eggs, and canned sardines. A large cup of strong black tea is steaming on the breakfast bar, and Kakashi lifts it and takes a sip to settle his stomach - Kakashi hates the stench of sardines, and debates with himself whether it’s worth it to buy them the rare chances he gets to shop. But Guy loves them, so Kakashi always loads up on them.

The things he does for this man.

“Thank you for the eggs, my rival,” Guy says over his shoulder.

“Ma, ma, what are friends for?” Kakashi answers, wrinkling his nose and taking another sip of tea. “Pakkun requests a share, though.”

“And you? It is a fine blend, guaranteed to raise your youthful vigor!”

“I’m not young enough to drink _that_ , Guy.”

The Green Beast laughs, and whirls the blender to life.

A healthy dose of the concoction is poured in a dog bowl by the pantry, and Guy chugs the rest of it straight out of the pitcher as Kakashi finishes his tea.

“Ah, that hits the spot,” Guy says.

Kakashi eyes the clock. “Where is Lee this morning?”

“My youthful student is on a mission today,” Guy replies. He opens his mouth to add something, but hesitates.

Damn Guy for still hesitating to ask for help, even after all these years.

Kakashi slides his mask up his face, opens the blinds covering the kitchen window, and makes a quick handsign at the purple-haired ANBU on morning watch indicating he is going to be late. It’s hard to tell behind the cat mask, but the motion of the response sign Yugao makes in return - _Again?_ \- makes him think she’s laughing at him. She’s one of the few who doesn’t take Kakashi too seriously these days, a fact Kakashi appreciates.

Guy nods, grim-faced, and tucks his crutches under his arms to make the trip to the bathroom. Kakashi follows, but makes a quick stop by the laundry to pick up a fresh uniform, one of the atrocious green jumpsuits Guy wears, and a few rolls of fresh bandages.

By the time he enters the bathroom, the shower is running, and Guy is sitting on the closed toilet seat, his damaged leg lifted. Kakashi deposits the clothes on the counter, and kneels in front of Guy, pulling on the velcro that held his wrappings in place.

“I want you to know, my friend,” Guy says, quietly, “How deeply I appreci-”

“Shut up, Guy,” Kakashi responds with a smile. It’s not as if Kakashi would not happily do this chore, when Lee wasn’t there to take the honors himself.

Moving swiftly, he unwinds the bandages, dropping them on the floor, until the aluminum leg brace appears. Kakashi loosens the top buckle, reaches in to cup Guy’s heel, and opens the top buckle, removing the apparatus. Another move unwraps the thick woolen padding, leaving Guy’s oddly thin and pale lower leg free.

Kakashi ignores the sound of gritting teeth - the procedure is agonizingly painful, although Guy steadfastly refuses to vent a single sound of discomfort. Instead he opens the bottom drawer of the cabinet and withdraws the plastic shell of Guy’s shower brace, and snaps it closed around Guy’s leg. The dark-haired man grunts in relief as the brace picks up the effort to support the dead, ever-unhealing shattered bones of his leg. 

“Thank you my friend,” Guy says quietly. Then he stands on his good leg, drops his boxers, and hops toward the shower.

Kakashi is brushing his teeth and enjoying Guy’s shower singing - Guy has a lovely deep baritone - when he catches his eyes in the mirror and considers his domestic life.

Sakura, Naruto, Tenten, and Lee had offered very happy congratulations to Kakashi when he moved his old rival in with him (Naruto threatening to paint his felicitations all over the Hokage monument, an impulse only stopped by the deadly promise of a lifetime filled with nothing but the most awful D-rank missions Kakashi could scrape up,) and it had taken a huge amount of convincing to make the four understand that it wasn’t like that at all. While Guy is enthusiastically homosexual (and has quite a reputation as an exceptional lover among certain male members of Konoha’s nightlife,) Kakashi… isn’t. Isn’t much of anything at all, frankly. He supposes he’s hetero of sorts, but…

You don’t live the life Kakashi has lived, lose as many loved ones as Kakashi has, shove your electrified hand through the heart of the first girl to love you like Kakashi has, and still be anything at all.

He doesn’t read Jiraya’s works for the sex scenes. They don’t stir anything in his loins. Kakashi reads them for the realistic and optimistic romance the Toad Sage filled them with. It’s as close as Kakashi can ever come to an actual romantic relationship.

Staring into his own dark eyes, toothbrush working over his back teeth, Kakashi can admit in the privacy of his own head how utterly damaged he really is.

But that was life, at least to the last Hatake. And they are old scars anyways, Kakashi almost doesn’t remember them these days - and he has deliberately filled his life with people that bring him joy and reasons to continue. Like the muscled bowl-cut singing in the shower.

And it is easy to mistake the two of them for lovers, Kakashi admits. They share meals during the day, take turns cooking dinner, argue in the shops about how many cans of sardines they need. Comfort and console each other in the other’s brief moments of weakness, with just a look or a touch. Kakashi is the one with the cooldown hug and a cold bottle of electrolyte formula when Guy’s ever-present frustration at the limits of his body begins to break through. Guy is the one cuddled beside Kakashi at night when the nightmares come, summoned from his slumber by the ninken Guy asked personally to fetch him when they came, holding him through the shaking and the tears.

Kakashi smiles, the corner of his eyes crinkling. They really are everything to each other, all but one thing - and comfortable with what they are not.

“What is the reason for your youthful smile this glorious morning,” Guy asks, smiling himself, as he hops out of the shower and grabs a towel.

“Oh, you know. Stuff,” Kakashi replies.


	9. Sasuke & Sakura

Sasuke shakes the wetness from his hair from his morning dunk in the stream as he walks back to their little camp. Cold morning baths didn’t bother him as much as they did his travelling partner.

As he enters the camp, he hefts the pail of water he is carrying, holding it over the teakettle and tipping the bottom of it with his foot to pour a measured amount of water. Then he hangs it from one of the hooked rods impaled in the ground and leaned over the tiny fire, before lifting the kettle and doing the same over a second rod. He pokes the coals with a twig, then drops another pair of broken sticks on top. Then he snaps two travelling mugs open, dropping two black teabags in one and a morning sickness blend - ginger and peppermint and who knows what else - in the other, along with a crushed caffeine pill. Finally, he sits, leaning back against the log serving as a heat reflector, and enjoys the soft coolness of the morning.

He feels in the dirt with his solitary hand, picking up a handful of small rounded stones. He holds them contemplatively for a moment, then gently lobs one at the pink hair and smooth forehead poking out of their shared bedroll. It lands gently on the violet diamond marking the center, eliciting a groan.

The second stone is swatted out of the air by a small hand attached to a slim arm. It flies with tremendous force, smashing a hole through a tree on the far side of the clearing, startling a flight of birds into the air.

He tosses a third in the air and catches it, debating with himself. A sleepy voice mutters “Don’t even think about it,” from under the blanket.

Sasuke snorts and drops the pebbles as Sakura sits up, tossing the blanket aside and blinking owlishly at the morning sunshine. Then she stretches her arms over her head, yawning, showing her slim, girlish figure clad in a sports bra and compression shorts, marred only by the small belly swell of her four month pregnancy.

Sasuke’s eyes linger over his wife. It’s still a shock to him how much a tiny little swell could make him love someone so much more deeply, desire their body so much more.

Sakura staggers to her feet, yawning again and running her hands through her pink bob. Then she stumbles away from camp towards the latrine. “Gotta pee,” she says over her shoulder.

He pours the tea while she’s gone. The sound of retching reaches his ears as he unwraps a granola bar with his teeth and takes a bite. Morning sickness has been brutal on Sakura the past few months, and even though it’s starting to fade, Sasuke knows she won’t be able to eat until after noon.

She takes her cup when she comes back and sips it, making a face and swishing it around her mouth. She spits that mouthful into the dirt, and takes a second, grunting unhappily.

“God I miss coffee,” she says, swallowing.

Sasuke grunts, and reaches in her pack for the collapsible washbasin. He snaps it upright with his one hand, then passes it to Sakura along with a sponge. She accepts it with a grunt in return, pouring hot water in it from the heating pail. Then she gently kicks the bedroll off the ground cloth, and unashamedly strips her underclothes off. 

A memory of his academy days, and the red-bearded former jonin who taught fieldcraft to a motley collection of eleven-year-olds, surfaces in Sasuke’s mind. “Asshole, armpits,” he begins.

“Crotch and teeth,” Sakura finishes with a smile, as she pulls a tiny bottle of no-rinse body wash out of her pack, along with Sasuke’s toothbrush and no-spit toothpaste. She underhand tosses the last two to Sasuke with a smirk, and then neels naked on the ground cloth and wets her sponge.

As he brushes his teeth, Sasuke is captivated by the innocent beauty of the scene before his eyes. A young mother to be, nude form glowing in the dappled sunlight shining through the trees, gently washing the previous day’s grime from her slim but defined body, smiling faintly as the sponge crosses the swell of her pregnancy, pink hair bobbing with her motions and pink curls rising from between her legs…

Sasuke activates his Sharingan to capture the scene indelibly in his memory. He had seen more than his share of dark and awful memories etched forever in his mind - he deeply appreciated the wholesome and happy memories his wife gave him every day to drown out the darkness.

Sakura notices his gaze as she washes one armpit, and (of course) ruins the moment with a dirty little grin. Her left hand swirls the sponge gently over her left breast, while her right drops, cupping her other breast sensuously, her hooded eyes turning to look at him with an open invitation…

_ Hn _ , Sasuke thinks. Then he scoops her towel out of her pack and lobs it at her, covering her head.

Her bright laughter erupts from underneath, and she pulls it off her head with a faintly embarrassed smile. “Hey mister,” she says, dropping the towel on the ground cloth beside her, “I’m trying to seduce you here…”

“I know,” Sasuke answers from around his toothbrush, with one of his infuriating half-smiles. Then he takes a sip of his now-cold tea (blech) and swishes the toothpaste out of his mouth, as Sakura rolls her eyes and sticks her tongue out at him.

Then she gracelessly shoves the sponge between her legs to wash herself there, too. “But Sasuke,” she leers, “You make me so wet…”

He groans internally at her joke. As much as she claims her father’s sense of humor was terrible, her’s is just as bad at times, with an extra helping of perviness. Sauke blames Naruto’s bad influence on her.

She is finishing dressing while he stows their belonging in packs before he speaks again. “There is a nice little onsen we should reach by midafternoon…” he says.

“Mmmhmm,” she hums at him.

“They have a mineral water bath that’s just the right temperature.”

“That sounds lovely,” she says, hefting her pack onto her back.

“And they do great dango…”

“Ooh… we’re stopping there tonight.”

“Hn,” Sasuke says, swinging his own pack over his cloak. “After our bath I’ll take you up on your offer this morning,” he says, and lowers his head to kiss her.

Only to be stopped by two fingers to the forehead.

“Maybe later,” she says, smiling impishly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm an unashamed comment whore. Don't be afraid, I don't bite. Let me know what you think, what you like, what doesn't work. Feedback is always appreciated.


	10. Temari & Shikamaru & Shikadai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As requested by @Wargraymon0700
> 
> This was supposed to be out last weekend, but then the Fimbulwinter had to come and consume the US, and I had to temporarily migrate to a place with a better heater, leaving my PC behind. I don't know about you, but writing these ever-growing chapters using a phone keyboard is not my idea of fun times.
> 
> In the pipeline is a Gaara/Lee crackfic chapter and a serious introspective Iruka x Kakashi chapter for @Daniel_Without_a_D, a Suigetsu x Karin chapter, and the temptation to write a _very_ dark Tsunade chapter - we will see how the last one goes, it's not going to be a fun ride.
> 
> (Yes, I'm describing how to make breakfast burritos in the chapter. Suna seems a good fit for Tex-Mex food, in the absence of the Land of Cactus. It, and the oyakodon in a previous chapter, are personally tested recipes, just sans amounts, you can follow along and make your own breakfast.)
> 
> As always, I'm a comment whore and taking suggestions.

The earthy, fresh scent of rain blowing gently through the bedroom window awakens Temari from her sleep just after dawn.

"Mmm," she grunts, blinking rapidly to erase the sleep from her exotically slanted eyes. Here in Konoha, she habitually sleeps with the window cracked. The smell of greenery and rich earth is a wonderful balm in the night, so unlike the burned-flint smell and dust of her former home. That, coupled with the scent of rain, or occasionally the crackling ozone scent of the sudden but fierce thunderstorms that swept Konoha in the spring... she would never grow tired of it.

She rolls on her back, and reaches out to run her hand through Shikamaru's unbound hair. This too she adores, the feel of his straight black hair, the play of muscle and scars across his broad back. 

Shikamaru mumbles something in his sleep at her touch, and then hauls the blanket over his head.

Well, she doesn't adore _everything_ about her husband. These Nara men and their lazy streak...

Temari suppresses the instinct to clench her fist in his hair and drag him into wakefulness. He has been working hard the past few weeks on trade revisions to the Alliance treaty, not making it home until well after dark. That he is home this late, indulging his morning laziness, means that the bulk of the work must be finished. She will give him a chance to relax and recharge - a peaceful, lazy Shikamaru with time for amorous intentions towards his wife is her second-favorite mood of his.

She would bite off her own tongue before she ever told him her favorite - when his eyes sharpened to razors and his mind snapped together some incredible tactic from the jumble of current events and half-formed plans and stray thoughts wafting through his vast mind... it had been nearly two decades since the day she learned, standing in a crowded arena with this irritating kid that wouldn't stop yawning, who had just defeated her thoroughly and was now _surrendering_ of all things, how utterly arousing she found his unerring casual brilliance.

She slides her hand out of his hair, then rolls the blanket off of her, sitting up on her side of the bed and trying to run her hands through the gentle waves of her hair. Her fingers catch in tangles - ah, yes, the downside to gentle Konoha rains are the knots it twists into her hair. She gives up, gathers it back into a rough ponytail, and snaps one of the elastic bands on her nightstand drawer around the mess to hold it in place. That will do until she showers. She stands up and stretches, then grabs the overlong tee-shirt she sleeps in and pulls it down over her ass - it always rucks up around her waist as she sleeps. Her robe is hanging by the bedroom door, and she wraps it around her and ties it closed, tucking a special present for her son into the belt at the small of her back.

A quick pitstop in the bathroom, then she slides open the door to the central garden of her home, stepping out barefooted from under the eaves to let the gentle raindrops fall on her face. There are many things she still misses from the open and arid lands she was born in, but the rains of her new home were something she appreciated from the very first moment she experienced them.

She stands there for a moment, the rain wetting her hair and shoulders, then steps back on the porch as a shiver runs up her spine. She shakes the rain out of her hair and reaches up to pinch a tomato and a fresh hot pepper off of the hanging baskets she grows them in. Konoha cuisine is a little bland for her taste, and she misses the fiery heat of Suna's food, but there were ways to adapt. It still surprises her that she has found an ally in her son's best friend - Boruto's mouth is nearly as desensitized to capsaicin as hers, and she delights in cooking a screaming hot chili curry from home, just for the two of them, on the occasions the Hokage's son would stay the night.

An ox-masked ANBU lands in the courtyard holding a sealed folder and bows to her. She nods in return, and gestures the man towards the door. Shikamaru's morning briefing has arrived.

As the ANBU agent deposits the folder on the dining room table and slips silently back out the door, Temari carries her vegetables to the kitchen. First, she starts the coffee machine, full of the caffeine-rich but flavor-poor Iwa dark roast the rest of her family drinks. Then she spoons a heavy scoopful of very finely ground Suna-blend into the special long-handled vessel designed to brew it, fills it with water, and sets it on the stove to boil.

As the coffee percolates, she quickly deseeds and dices the pepper, along with the tomato and half an onion in the fridge. She also chops two potatoes, and sets them to fry in one heavy skillet. In the second, she adds a little oil, then drops in the diced vegetables as the oil begins to shimmer. Again, she laments the impossibility of finding fresh Suna chorizo hundreds of miles from her birthplace, but shikata ga nai - it simply cannot be helped.

While the vegetables cook, Temari turns the burner off under her special coffee pot just as it begins to boil, stirs in three spoonfuls of sugar, and pours herself a small cupful of the frothy drink. She takes an appreciative sip, then walks across the dining room to the hallway down which the bedrooms lay. "Shikamaru, Shikadai," she calls out, "Get the hell up! Breakfast in five minutes!"

A muffled moan of assent from the two filters down the hall, so she turns her attention back to breakfast.

She flips the potatoes, then cracks six eggs directly on top of the vegetables, and quickly scrambles them. A second trip to the fridge gets her a bag of shredded cheese and the thin flour Suna flatbread she likes. She toasts each flatbread individually over the open flame of the stove, then spoons in a scoop of potatoes, a scoop of scrambled eggs, a sprinkle of cheese, and rolls each one up into a wrap.

She deposits the plate of wraps on the dining room table, then listens for activity down the hallway. Hearing none, she frowns, and stalks towards Shikadai's bedroom. Lazy Nara men.

Temari sticks her head in the boy's room, to find him still under the blankets, his handheld gaming system by his head. No wonder he was still asleep, he must have spent all night on the damn thing. She walks to the bed, leans over his head, and shouts, "GET UP!"

Shikadai groans, then rolls off the far side of the bed, wrapping the blanket around him like she wrapped his breakfast, hitting the floor with a muffled whump. Then he rolls underneath the bed, and starts to snore.

The gall of this kid.

Her temper urges her to pick up the entire bed and fling it out the window, but age and motherhood have tempered her more violent instincts. Instead, she grits her teeth, then turns and leaves the room. Time to make it someone else's problem.

Shikamaru is laying on his back, covers thrown off exposing his boxer-clad and gently muscled body, pillow firmly laying on his head. Temari resists the urge to grap the top of it and push down and hold it until her husband stops twitching, instead yanking it off his face, around, and back down on his head. Hard.

"What?" he shouts, sitting up in bed, disoriented. "What's wrong?"

"Breakfast," Temari answers icily. "Go wake your son."

He reaches up and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. "Man, what a..." he trails off, catching Temari's emerald glare. "...right. In the closet, under the bed, or out the window this time?"

"Under the bed." she says, her eyes softening. For all his laziness was annoying, he was amazingly quick to drop it where his family was concerned.

She walks back towards the dining room as Shikamaru opens the dresser drawer in search of clothes. She picks her cup up off the table and drains it, then walks back in the kitchen and lights the burner under the special pot to froth a second cup. Meanwhile, she grabs two mugs and fills both with the heavy brew from the coffee pot. Again she lifts her special pot just as it begins to foam over, and pours herself a second small cup. She carries the three cups to the dining room and sets them on the table as a loud thump echoes down the hall. A moment later, she hears her son's grumbled complaints as he stumbles into the bathroom.

A moment later, her husband walks into the dining room, hair down and unbound, clad only in a dark flannel pair of sleep pants, and flops gracelessly into the seat in front of the sealed folder. He picks up his cup of Iwa blend, takes a long pull, then starts to unwrap the binding on the folder.

"And?" Temari asks.

"I lifted the bed and poked him in the ribs with my foot until he got up," Shikamaru answers. "He'll be here in a minute."

He opens the folder, and tucks a strand of his hair behind his ears. Temari steps behind him, pulling the elastic band off his left wrist, and gathering his hair into a tight ponytail. He smiles at her in appreciation, then lifts the top wrap from the stack and takes a bite as he reads the top sheet of his morning brief. A cough catches in his throat from the spice, but he's a lot more tolerant of the heat of his wife's cooking than he was when they first started dating after the war, and gamely keeps chewing.

Shikadai stumbles into the dining room, wearing pajamas, his eyes barely open. He flops into his own seat with even less grace than his dad, then reaches out for his own coffee cup and a wrap. He takes a huge bite and chews, then mumbles "Troublesome," around the mouthful of food.

Temari takes her seat and picks up her own wrap. "You have training this morning," she says before taking a bite.

Shikadai grimaces, then sips his coffee to clear his mouth. "Damnit, Moegi-sensei said we were off today. What a drag..."

She levels a glare at her son - she fully intended to break him of that bad habit before adulthood - but instead of replying, she pulls the small steel fan from the belt of her robe and snaps it open to show all three eyes.

"Mom," he asks, his eyes opening wide and every trace of sleep leaving his body. "Are we..."

"Yes," Temari answers. "Today you start learning the fan."

Shikadai starts to bounce in his seat, and Temari and Shikamaru both laugh at him. "Finish your breakfast, boy," she says, "And then we'll begin."


	11. Iruka & Kakashi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As requested by @Daniel_Without_a_D.

It’s 3:30 am, and Iruka should be asleep.

In his defense, it’s been an eventful night. You don’t have your suspicions confirmed about your co-worker by being stabbed in the back every night, nor do you witness your favorite idiot student have a flash of brilliance that outshines the sun, reminding you exactly who his genius parents were.

A med-nin patched the hole in his back, but even so, the wound still faintly aches, the flesh remembering an injury that no longer exists. Usually Iruka can meditate to slow his racing thoughts, but tonight, every time he gains a measure of calm and begins to slip off into dreams, he’ll twitch just the wrong way, and his back will spasm, and then his mind is racing again.

Finally he gives up, and sits up on the side of the bed. It’s not worth the struggle for a few fleeting hours of rest. After team assignments there won’t be much left for Iruka to do, maybe he can beg off early and finally rest properly tonight. Meanwhile, strong black tea will have to be his friend – Kakashi strong, at that.

Almost on cue, his bedroom window slides silently open, and a lanky figure slips inside, crouching in the faint light streaming inside.

“Shit, Kakashi,” Iruka laughs. “It’s nearly four in the morning, don’t you ever sleep? You’re lucky I’m awake…” he trails off, clicking his bedside lamp alight.

To be met with a hollow, red-tinged stare, the silver-haired jonin tense and shivering.

Oh.

Well… shit.

This is not the easygoing occasional lover making a very late-night amorous stop at his sometimes-boyfriend’s house.

This is the other Kakashi Hatake, the one plagued by guilt and haunted by ghosts.

Iruka stands, the blanket sliding off his nude body. Three steps takes him to the copy-nin, two hands lift his masked face until the scarecrow-thin figure is forced to stand, and Iruka presses his body into Kakashi and just breathes.

It takes a moment, but Kakashi finally responds, one hand slipping around Iruka’s waist, a shuddering breath escaping his body.

Good. He isn’t completely unresponsive. Sometimes his trauma bites deeply, and Kakashi can slip into a deep fugue, and then it can take hours of patient work to bring him around. That he isn’t completely lost in his own mind meant he hadn’t let things completely consume him, just… gnaw at him a bit.

Iruka touches his forehead to Kakashi’s, and lets his breathing synchronize. He hold Kakashi there for just a moment.

“Let me put on some pants and start the tea,” he says with a sad smile. Kakashi nods, and releases his gentle grip.

As the water boils, Iruka adds a huge scoop of loose tea to the strainer. Just as the kettle whistles, he lifts it and fills the teapot, then grabs the strainer and starts swishing it around, hurrying the steep. Kakashi had shown him how to brew this kind of tea, thick and black and bitter, almost too strong to stomach. He claimed he learned it from his Uchiha protégé during his ANBU days – the scarecrow never mentioned a name, but Iruka had a good guess as to which Uchiha in particular it must have been. 

The unnamed individual would brew his tea to the point of undrinkability, and then Kakashi would drink it anyways, and it wound up a competition between the two (the third member of the team, Kakashi called him Tenzo, tried to keep up for a few days, before calling the two a pair of self-destructive idiots and going back to coffee.) 

And after… well, _after,_ Kakashi had kept the habit, and passed it on in turn to Iruka. Not that the teacher indulged very often, but there was something comforting about the strong brew on nights like this, when Iruka tried to pick up the pieces of a broken soldier and glue him back into something almost resembling a person.

Iruka takes a sip straight from the pot, and grimaces as the tannins try to dissolve his tongue. Just right. He pours Kakashi a cup, then himself, tempering his own with an unhealthy amount of sugar. He slips the jonin’s cup into his hands, then pulls down his mask, and runs his hand across Kakashi’s unshaven face, leaning into his shoulder.

“They gave me a team,” the copy-nin begins.

Iruka sips his tea and nods. It was scuttlebutt around the Academy that Kakashi was chosen for the teams that just barely passed but still needed another year of teaching. As a jonin-sensei, he came as a shock to the arrogant and unprepared, relentless and implacable and almost cruel to the genin who didn’t yet have quite what it took to be a shinobi, recycling them with a stunning speed and grace to be reforged in another year of classes.

“Who’d you get this year?” Iruka asks.

Kakashi hesitates, then continues. “Uchiha, Uzumaki, and Haruno.”

“Team Seven,” he adds, his voice cracking on the last word.

_Holy hell,_ Iruka thinks, torn between disgust at the Hokage for deliberately hammering at Kakashi's old wounds, and admiration at the sheer brazen boldness of the act. No wonder Kakashi looks like someone has just walked over his grave.

But Iruka is a shinobi first and above all, even one who has chosen a desk and a classroom instead of active duty. He has to be able to see underneath the underneath – and this time, Iruka can see all the way down.

The Sandaime wasn’t just looking to match Sharingan to Sharingan, student and sensei to former student and sensei, potential med-nin to a pair all too likely see injury as a course of duty.

Naruto Uzumaki resembles Obito Uchiha to a remarkable degree. Sakura Haruno could be a pink-haired clone of Rin Nohara. And the angry and distant Sasuke Uchiha was disturbingly similar to the hostile and cold Kakashi Hatake that once existed, before everything went wrong.

They _were_ Team Seven. And Hiruzen Sarutobi had deliberately handed them to the last damaged survivor of the old Team Seven, as a chance for things to go _right_ this time. That, in guiding the trio past the minefields that had consumed his former team, Kakashi might have a chance to lay some of his own demons to rest along the way.

_Now,_ Iruka thought, _how to explain that to this unstable ball of unhealed trauma that the Sandaime and I are both trying to save…_

He snags the other chair with his leg, pulls it up close, and sits beside the silver-haired man, so close they touch at shoulder and thigh. Iruka lays his head on Kakashi’s shoulder, and laughs.

Kakashi turns his head and looks at Iruka with a bewildered gaze.

“I know what you’re thinking, Hatake. But look on the bright side for once.”

Iruka lifts his head for a sip of stomach-churning blackness, then begins.

“Let’s take Haruno first. A potential med-nin with an unhealthy fixation on the broody member of the team. But unlike _her_ , Sakura has a strength hidden deep in her. She could be more than just the team healer and peacemaker. Give her enough reason to grow that strength, and she’ll be a rock the other two can rely on. She won’t have to _make_ peace, because she will _be_ peace they can shelter in.”

“Sasuke Uchiha. Sullen and angry and furious at the unfair world,” Iruka says, bumping shoulders with Kakashi. “But he also has a protective streak. Redirect that revenge instinct and encourage that protectiveness, and you’ll turn that avenger into a steadfast and loyal guardian.”

“And Uzumaki. Dead last, prankster, loser. I know _exactly_ who he reminds you of.”

Iruka looks Kakashi squarely in the eye. “He had the Forbidden Scroll for maybe thirty minutes before I caught up with him tonight. And he beat Mizuki into the ground with over a hundred clones. _Shadow clones_ , Kakashi.”

The scarecrow’s eyebrow climbs almost to his headband. 

“Yes. He learned an A-rank kinjutsu from a scroll with _no tutoring_ in _thirty minutes._ That’s how much of a ‘dead last loser’ he really is.”

“And besides that,” Iruka continues, “I have never seen that kid surrender, not against any opposition. He’s been neglected and abused his whole life, he could teach even you a few things about trauma. But he keeps smiling, and shouting his defiance. He’s the hated and feared jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, and has even managed to forge connections with his classmates – maybe not friends, but he’s definitely a hell of a lot more than just the demon brat to them.”

Kakashi swirls his tea in the cup with a pensive look on his face. Excellent. _He’s managing to look beyond his ghosts and see something new_ , Iruka thinks. _Time to bring it home._

He smiles, and drains his cup. “I don’t see Obito at all in him,” Iruka says. “He acts just like Kushina most of the time, but she’s not who I see in him either.

Iruka catches Kakashi’s eye one more time, and grins. “Underneath everything, Kakashi? Naruto has Minato’s heart. He’s not one reality will be bending into knots and breaking into pieces. He’s going to be the one _doing_ the bending and breaking.”

Iruka stands, and steps to the sink to rinse his cup, and behind him he hears Kakashi sigh, then give a bark of laughter. He turns to see the silver-haired jonin relax, the tension leaving his shoulders, head rising to meet Iruka’s eyes with a smile.

“Ma, ma, that’s why I come over, to hear these lovely inspirational speeches of yours.”

Iruka grins back. “You know it, Hatake.”

Kakashi’s gaze shifts to a speculative look. “Do you really believe all that bullshit you just spouted?”

Iruka nods in return. “Every word. Don’t let your ghosts haunt you. Let these three be who _they_ are, they’re going to amaze you.”

Kakashi laughs, and stands, draining his own cup. He walks to the sink to rinse it, and Iruka reaches out to rub his stubbled cheek.

“Do me a favor?”

“Hm?”

“Give them the best ‘you’ you have to give. Shave this ugly crud, don’t just hide it behind a mask.”

Iruka bumps hips with Kakashi. “And when you pass them,” he says, reaching up to kiss the copy nin, “Come over and we’ll celebrate.”


	12. Satsuki & Naruto & the Twins

_Maybe next time, Satsuke._

Her eyes snap open in the pre-dawn gloom, then close again with a sigh. Dreams of her brother again.

A happy one this time, at least. Dreams of the elder Itachi weren’t always so pleasant.

She opens her eyes again and glances at the clock on the dresser. Five fifty-eight in the morning. She had slept in by nearly half an hour.

Satsuke turns her mismatched eyes back to her husband, sleeping on his side of the bed, good arm outstretched and fingers tangled with her own. Naruto is drooling in his sleep, a puddle on the pillow under his cheek, mouth open but breathing quietly.

She had cured him of his snoring the ugly but efficient way, back when they first started sleeping together in those heady post-war days – every time she heard a snore, she stabbed him in his sleep. It had only taken her a year to accomplish the feat, something she was absurdly proud of. Naruto could give lessons to stones in stubbornness.

That had been the tale of their relationship for a long time. Acknowledging the profound love that had bound the two together since their genin days was trivial task compared to the amount of compromises the pair had to make to build their eventual marriage. 

But now, fifteen years later, they had become as synchronized in their everyday life as they had once been in battle. She fondly indulged his love of cuddling at night until it was time to sleep, and he remembered to scoot back on his side of the bed to keep from suffocating her with his fierce body heat at night. He didn’t snore anymore, and she always kept her sole hand entwined with his to maintain the body contact he so craved. Little irritations that time and effort had smoothed over, allowing two lovers with very different personalities and outlooks on life to cohabitate in the same house, share the same bed.

The clock ticks over to six, and Satsuke shakes her hand loose from his, reaching over to firmly pinch his nose.

Naruto grimaces, and swats her hand away. “Bastard,” he says, not even opening his eyes.

Satsuke smiles. “Six a.m., dobe, get up.”

He opens one eye, and grumbles at her. “You are such a sadistic bitch in the morning, you know.”

“Hn.”

He reaches over with his arm, and cups her face gently, running his thumb across her lips. Then he sits up, stretching that arm over his head until his back pops. Satsuke takes a moment to admire his back, then rolls over on her back and sits up-

Ow. _Fuck._

Naruto glances back over his shoulder. “You okay?”

“Hn.”

He raises an eyebrow in an unspoken question.

Satsuke shakes her head. “I’m fine, dobe, I’ll manage. Put your arm on and start the kettle.”

His lips purse in a disapproving look, but he grabs his artificial right arm off of the nightstand and slides it home on the stump, holding it in place until his chakra synchronizes and the dead white tissue comes alive and seals against his skin. Then, shaking the pins-and needles sensation out of his newly-activated right hand, he stands, hikes the orange sleep pants he wears up, and walks out of the bedroom.

It always bothers Naruto how his wife will never accept help, but Satsuke has her pride. One little battlefield injury may have forced her from active duty, but she’ll be damned if she lets it stop her completely.

Using her sole arm for leverage, Satsuke twists in bed until her feet hit the floor – two arms would make this easier, but the artificial arm Tsunade had cultured for her after the war never functioned correctly. Sakura, Shizune, Tsunade, and the best med-nin from across the Alliance had poked and prodded and tested and experimented to no end to find an answer, but Satsuke already knows why. The cells of a descendant of Ashura would never be fully compatible with a descendant of Indra. Even Madara’s apparent mastery of Hashirama cells had been a matter of brute-forcing them with his own immense chakra.

She grabs her cane from its place hanging on her nightstand, and holding it firmly in front of her, Satsuke lurches to her feet with a hiss. She holds still for a long moment, slowly easing her weight into her damaged right leg, willing the muscles to unknot and joints to loosen. Finally she can balance on both legs, so she leans the cane against the bed and shakes out her long spikey hair, untwists and settles the black tanktop and old pair of Naruto’s boxers she wore to bed, and rubs the sleep out of her mismatched eyes. Then, gritting her teeth, she hobbles for the master bathroom.

First Satsuke pees – thank the gods for good bladder control, considering how much effort it takes for her to reach the bathroom from the bed – and then she opens the little medicine box Sakura had gifted her almost a decade ago, and one by one she takes each bottle, opens the flip-top lid, and counts out her morning pills. Three willowbark tablets, one muscle relaxer, carefully only one poppy-extract capsule – her time with Orochimaru had demonstrated the hideous results of opium poppy addiction, and Satsuke is very careful with her dose of the narcotic – one corticosteroid, a laxative to combat the worst side effect of the poppy extract, and finishing with a pill of something unpronounceable for her completely unrelated high blood pressure (yeah, sure, Sakura, she only hobbles around in constant pain all day long, unable to continue her deeply satisfying ANBU career – the high blood pressure is _completely_ unrelated.)

Satsuke gathers the pills and drops them in her mouth, then fills a cup with water and swallows the lot. She catches her own eyes in the mirror, and considers herself.

Her eyes are still razor-sharp, one coal-black that will spin into the wine-red and black pattern of the Mangekyo with a touch of chakra, one in the deep purple concentric rings of the Rinnegan dotted with six tomoe. Satsuke still takes pride in her mismatched eyes, symbols of the strength she earned and the sacrifices she has made.

But those eyes are bracketed with crow’s feet and stress lines these days – every day, it feels more like the elder Itachi is looking back at her instead of her own reflection.

To hell with it, though. Her brother had been a handsome man. If she took more after him than her hazy memories of her mother, she would accept it.

As she leaves the bathroom, she eyes the Jacuzzi tub wistfully. A hot bath would feel fantastic right now, but it took either Naruto or one of the twins to assist her in and out of it. Naruto would help without a thought, but Satsuke isn’t one to demand he ignores his duties as Hokage just to spare her some of his precious free time helping her bathe. And the kids were just the age to be uncomfortably embarrassed with the duty. Hot showers would have to suffice.

Naruto is sipping his cup of coffee as she walks into the kitchen. A cup is steaming by her chair at the kitchen table, tea bags floating as they steep. Satsuke hangs her cane from the table and settles into the rolling chair with a sigh.

He walks over and tips her head back, leaning down to kiss her. Satsuke accepts it, then smirks at him.

“You have coffee breath,” she says, but reaches up and pulls Naruto down for a second, deeper kiss.

She can feel one of his pointed canines catch her lip as he grins against her lips, but he stands back upright and yawns, scratching his short blond hair (Satsuke misses the unkempt spikes of his youth, but the close crop looks good on him too.)

“You had better shower before the twins get up,” Satsuke says. “If you don’t, you’ll miss your ANBU meeting this morning.”

“Sai can handle that just fine, y’know,” he answers back, but dutifully drains his mug anyways. He walks towards the hallway, pausing only to tousle her long hair on the way. She swats his hand away, then grumbles “Usuratonkachi,” over her shoulder as he exits the kitchen laughing.

Satsuke sighs, then lifts her cup of black tea and takes a sip. Just right.

She stares out the kitchen window, into a cool and foggy gray morning. She can feel by the twisting sensation in her ruined hip that it’s going to be drizzling all day.

It reminds her of another day, in another dimension. She had tracked another Otsutsuki threat to the world, and with Kakashi-sensei’s permission, she and Naruto had preemptively taken the offense to the alien duo. The battle was hard fought, but the shinobi pair had Kinshiki immobilized and Momoshiki on the retreat by the end.

Until Momoshiki had driven a pair of chakra rods through Satsuke’s right knee and leg, and shattered them into razor-edged fragments with a touch of chakra. And grabbed her leg and _twisted_ , shredding the joints with the ragged shards along with snapping her femur.

Naruto’s roar of fury was the only thing she could hear over the agonizing scream violently ripping itself out of her throat – so loud, her voice still had a hoarse touch today, nine years later.

Naruto had eventually calmed down enough to realize, with Satsuke down, the battle had irreversibly turned. And, held in his arms while he retreated, she had fought through the agony to forge a path home with her Rinnegan.

Medical jutsu and surgery had pieced her leg back together, but nothing could prevent the joint cartilage itself from scarring, giving her an immediate acute case of arthritis. In the course of one battle and a week in the hospital, Satsuke had lost her position as the most dangerous kunoichi of her time, her position as ANBU captain, and a considerable amount of self-respect. Fallen to the status of crippled housewife.

It had nearly destroyed their marriage irrevocably – even the revenge Naruto, Gaara, and Killer Bee inflicted on the alien pair three months later, when the two dared to show their faces on this world, had done little to assuage her anger and bitter disappointment. But never once in his entire damned life had the loser ever given up on her. And, to what should have been an astonishing fact but somehow wasn’t, he had passed that damnable trait to their offspring as well.

A pair of gently muscled arms wrap around her shoulders in a hug, and the voice of a teenage boy tells her “You should stop frowning, Mama, your face might stick like that.”

“Hn.” She turns her head to look her fourteen year old son with a smile.

Itachi the younger resembles his long-dead uncle almost exactly, except for his ocean-blue eyes (which nevertheless hid a pair of single-tomoe Sharingan) and two faint whisker marks on each cheek.

At the sink is Sarada, pouring herself a cup of her dad’s vile coffee blend, her lanky form hidden in oversized pajamas. She sips it, then leans against the counter, finger-combing her short dark red Uzumaki hair, looking at her mother with coal-black eyes and Satsuke’s own infuriating half-smile on her whisker-marked face.

“About time you two got up,” Satsuke says with a sniff, but she can’t help but smile at the two best gifts her life had ever given her.

“What’s for breakfast?” her bottomless appetite of a son asks.

“Waffles,” his sister answers.

“Pancakes!” he snaps back.

“Waffles!” she retorts, a look of fury growing on her face.

“I said,” he says, standing up to every inch of his short frame, but Satsuke settles the brewing argument by smacking the table hard enough to bounce her cup.

“Pancakes. You two have missions today. You don’t have time to clean the waffle maker, and you are _not_ leaving it for your dad or me to clean.”

Itachi throws a self-satisfied smirk at his sister.

“And bacon,” Satsuke adds, and smirks herself as Sarada sticks her tongue out at his crestfallen expression.

“But sausage, Mama,” he begins, but Naruto interrupts him by walking back into the kitchen.

“Pancakes and bacon sound great,” he says, adjusting the cuff on his black jacket.

Itachi grumbles, but pulls out a skillet for pancakes. “Papa,” Sarada says, giving Naruto a quick hug, before pulling a package of bacon out of the fridge, along with milk and eggs for Itachi’s pancake batter.

While the twins busy themselves with breakfast, Naruto pours himself another cup of coffee, along with a mug of hot water and a pair of teabags for his son. Then he sits on the other side of the table and reaches out, taking Satsuke’s hand.

“What’s your plans today?” he asks.

“Sakura wants to see me this morning at ten,” she answers. “Something about a Scientific Ninja Tool breakthrough, polymers for artificial joints.”

Naruto raises an eyebrow. “That sounds significant.”

“You know me,” she replies with a sigh. “I’m not getting my hopes up.”

He nods ruefully, then sips his cup as she continues.

“Genjutsu training with the genin at one, then I’m free for the day.”

Naruto nods. “I have ANBU in a bit, then the elders at nine. Finance committee at one, and a judicial review with Shikamaru after that, but I should be home by seven or so.”

Satsuke snorts. “Midnight at best, you have paperwork.”

“Nah. Shika found this guy who’s really great with it, he really takes a load off my shoulders, y’know?”

“Will wonders never cease?” she asks sarcastically. “Still, I hope he works out.”

“Seven o’clock, believe it!” he says with a grin. “You want me to bring Ichiraku’s back tonight?”

“Osaka’s extra-large sushi assortment. Extra unagi for me, and you should add a couple of extra rolls for Itachi, the way he’s eating he’ll be hitting his growth spurt,” Satsuki replies, ignoring her son’s exasperated “I’m right here you know!” and her daughters laugh.

“Gotcha. Then how about a long hot bath, and maybe some sexy times?" Naruto says with a leer, ignoring the gagging noise his son makes and his daughter’s “Not enough therapy in the world.”

Satsuke smiles at him speculatively. “Maybe. But you’re going to be late.”

Naruto eyes the clock. “Crap,” he says, draining his cup and standing up. He walks into the foyer, then back into the kitchen a moment later with the Hokage cloak around his shoulder. He touches his wife’s forehead with two fingers, their own private goodbye, and then fistbumps Itachi and hugs Sarada.

At the last moment, he snags a hot pancake, drops a couple of freshly-fried slices of bacon in the middle, and folds it up. He takes a huge bite then says “Love you, bastard,” around a full mouth.

“Chew with your goddamned mouth shut, dobe!” is Satsuki’s exasperated reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap life is kicking my ass.
> 
> The depiction of arthritis is very real. I have a relative with juvenile-onset rheumatoid arthritis, along with my own developing osteoarthritis (I'm freaking 40 - where the hell have the years gone?) Getting up in the morning is a chore, at least until the pain meds kick in, and my relative's medication list is substantial (although hers includes a number of immune suppressants as well, being it's RA.)
> 
> I had a whole Hinata x Sakura chapter pretty much done - until I realized I had spent three thousand words on "how we got here" and less than four hundred on morning fluff. One of my major rules of fanfic is **Stay on target** \- if you're spending more time on side-story than intended story, you need to either delete the extraneous stuff, rework it to be less significant, or spin it off into it's own thing. 
> 
> In this case, I've chosen the latter. There's a lot of traction in an alcoholic and self-destructive Sakura and a numb and passively suicidal Hinata finding salvation in each other's arms following the death of Naruto and Sasuke at the VotE at the end of the war. Probably a 4-5 chapter fic. We'll see.
> 
> I still owe a Gaara & Lee crackfic chapter - I have the opening and one hell of a punchline, but not the middle bit - and a Karin x Suigetsu chapter (that's not fluff, more reaction to major unplanned life event, but still probably happening). Otherwise the well is a little dry (Naruto x Hinata will be the final chapter), so if there are any requests, **please** send them in. I'd like to hit 20 chapters minimum.
> 
> As always, it's easy to make a comment whore happy, just tell me what you think, you like, what doesn't work, whatever.


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